Calendar Dates
After the memorial service for Larry Gaffin
Vicki Robin
July 1, 2005
Years pass
One by one
Dates become "the time when...
He was born
She died
We met
You left
I swam in the ocean naked at dawn."
Even now,
When that day rolls around,
I feel a chill
Pegging skin to bone
Goose-bump quills fending off the water
As cold as spears of ice,
And taste again brine and freedom.
Entire weeks fill with remembrance
When we took that trip up north, just the two of us
When I sat in the woods without food, calling out for my soul
When Christ died on the cross and was resurrected.
The taste of whole seasons becomes richer
As the complex flavors simmer year after year
Summer becomes...
Dappled light
Roasting heat
Swimming pools, ponds, holes, beaches
Grilled meat
Naked arms
Chilly basements
Snoozing
Walks in the merciful cool of the evening
Fresh picked tomatoes that just rolled out of bed with the sun
Flowers pulling out all the color and fragrance stops
Overwhelming our ability to name anything
Every summer tastes this way... And more
Dates fill as a life ripens
The soul seed awakens
Hungry to root and branch and be
It's very vigor cracking the hard shell of linear time
Sweet flesh yields its juice, then
Wrinkles
Pulls away from the pit
Shrivels
Becomes nothing
All those dates, it seems
Simply food for that invisible issue
For that other life carried inside
A life that’s melon-round and full of living.
* * * * * *
To build a house
Vicki Robin
September 23, 2005
For Terri and Tom to bless their foundation
First, find the place where you will build.
To do this, ask, “Where do I belong?”
Ask, “Is this where I can live my days in joy and die in peace?”
Imagine you can hear your ancestors – those who knew your mother’s mothers mother – say “Yes”.
Then say yes.
Sit naked in this spot
Send your ancient tail down, down, down into the earth
Dowsing for the truth of the land and your belonging
Ask, “Who are my neighbors?”
Ask, “How will I get what I need in this place?”
When your breath comes easy,
When the community you’ve entered has said, “Yes, we will feed you,”
Then you can plan your house.
Walk the land, feeling where you like to stand at sunrise,
Where your feet go when you think, “Food.”
The sun on your back when you labor will bind you to this place.
The breeze that rises from the valley at sunset will freshen your linens for sleep.
Let the house grow around you like a bowl arising from a potter’s hands
Be hollow. Respond.
Go from beetle to fir tree to stone making friends
“Hello. How are you today?”
You’ll call out cheerily on your morning rounds.
Need anything from town?” you’ll ask these neighbors
Many of whom will never leave this place you’ll call home.
Paths will develop through this walking.
Soon you’ll know where the house’s walls and doors and windows should be.
Where they already are.
Only then, call in the architect and draw up the plans
Only then, call in the builders and build you a house.
Today is not the beginning. That was years ago. Perhaps before you were born.
Next year it will not be finished. That will never happen. Just one day you will move in and
Year after year your whole clan will make merry and merry and merry
And your neighbors the ferns and salal will feel safe in your presence
And you will belong.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Simpler Living in Tougher Times
Reflections on Katrina, System Breakdowns and Simpler Living
September 15, 2005
Amidst all the shocking, infuriating, moving emails and news stories since Katrina struck, a few have resonated more deeply with me - and together suggest a place to put our feet as we walk forward from this event.
The first, surprisingly, was at Op-ed by David Brooks on Sept 4 NY Times called The Bursting Point. Brooks is a conservative commentator often dismissive of ideas and actions that make perfect sense to me and mine. He likened this moment to the early 70's when Vietnam, Watergate, and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and MLK woke us from the dream of America as the innocent, optimistic, good guy nation. We lost faith in our institutions and those breakdowns opened political and cultural space for breakthroughs... some to our liking, some not. He suggests to those with a new vision for America that 'now is the hour' - strut your very best stuff.
The second was from Deena Metzger. Katrina, she said, isn't an event that happened to a few of us. It's part of an unfolding reality that's been happening for decades to all us. She suggests the best speed is slow, and the best approach is sobriety and community We need to discover, together, better responses to crisis through sitting in "council" - circles of conversations - that go as long and as deep as necessary. I quote:
The third article I will insert below in its entirety. It's from Bill McKibben, a journalist in the Cassandra tradition who for decades has given us well researched, deeply human books and articles to show us where our society's preference for money as the measure of meaning and value was taking us. He locked on to the Global Warming issue long ago and earned his right to use Katrina as a portend of the environmental whirlwind that's coming. His other occupation - a Methodist Sunday School teacher - I believe gives his journalism a prophetic yet protective quality that speaks to me.How do we proceed? We do not know. When wise people are
confronted by situations that are beyond them, they admit their incapacity and
they call councils. We must call councils. We must call the elders,
wise ones, scientists, et al, the experienced ones of the world community to
confer with us and each other. Wise cultures call councils especially when
they are, as we are, in grave danger of escalating the damage by taking
short-term methods that can produce even greater devastation… We
must ask each other to set aside, entirely, our personal hopes for our future,
for our security, for our advancement. Let us all be like those who have
lost everything. We are those who have lost everything. We have all lost
everything. We have. There is no future unless we understand that we have
lost everything and we have to begin again. No one and no system in the
living world are safe at this
moment.
Before Bill's article, I want to tell of a few recent experiences of my own. They may seems 'beside the point' (as much of our daily lives do in times of crisis), but make a point eventually.
The weekend before Katrina hit I attended the Fifth Annual Simplicity Forum Congress - a group of educators, activists, authors, academics, and organizers committed to "honoring and achieving simple, just and sustainable ways of life." In the middle of this intense, strategic meeting we took a break to enjoy our beautiful setting in the High Rockies. Half the group hiked down to a river and literally chilled together with their feet in the water. Suddenly a large dead tree toppled right into the middle of the group, injuring several and hitting one woman directly on the head. Quickly, people arrayed themselves according level of injury and according to skills and capacities, forming a spontaneous team of nurses, wilderness medics, transporters, runners, counselors, witnesses and such. The badly injured woman was stabilized and carried up and out, then ambulanced to the hospital. The group processed the shock while continuing to work very effectively as a team on building the Forum. Of course, in the background everyone wondered what it meant that a near tragedy literally descended into our midst. By the end, it was clear. Simple living doesn't mean that nothing bad happens anymore in your life. It's the low-ego, high-equanimity and community way you go through what happens. It allows the best to come from even bad situations. A tree falls in the forest, and people who live more simply seem to respond naturally with directness, resourcefulness and skill.
Two weekends later, I spent 4 days in the hospital for a high-tech surgical repair way beyond woodsy simplicity's capacity to deal. It was revelatory, though, in what hospitals no longer do. It sometimes took an hour for overworked nurses to respond to my call button. After the response, I'd often find the call button, pain med button and/or phone left out of reach. Hygiene was a packet of heavy-duty handy wipes given to me on day two for me to use. No teeth brushing or hair brushing. One procedure was stymied because the right tool wasn't available. My discharge doc had done his internship at a Community Hospital in LA. He said that such conditions were so common there that sadder-but-wiser nurses and aides would buy supplies at Costco - at their own expense - so they'd have what they needed to care for patients. "You're a writer," he said, "write about that. Someone has to tell that story." I realized that America is closer than ever to the conditions in less 'developed' countries where family members must accompany you to the hospital to do your nursing care. Will busy Americans, as the tempo of such breakdowns increases, need to take back their time for basic caring duties of family and community?
Katrina showed us many things. One was that the systems we have empowered to care for us have gotten careless to the point of being cruel and inhuman. Real humans want to take care of their sick and dying, but we've come to believe that someone else, somewhere else, is in charge and knows better. So people died in the streets, in the Stadium, in the hospitals, in their homes and were left for days. There are big changes we should have made decades ago that could prevent what McKibben warns is coming. Now these are dead snags just waiting to fall. Worse, though, is that we seem to lack to political and social will to make the sober, mature changes needed to deal the "trees that fall" with competence and good grace.
Simpler living seems tied to the expectation that oneself is the grown-up in one's own life. That if change is to be, it starts at home and is practical as well as philosophical. That big systems must be understood for what they can and can't do - and never be allowed to leave us more vulnerable, less able to respond intelligently. I've always said that the last place to look for financial independence is in having a pile of money. If you don't accumulate critical thinking, clear communication, loving relationships, an understanding of give-and-take, networks of friends and mutual help groups - all parts of 'resilience' - no amount of money will protect you in a destabilized world.
As David Brooks says, now is the time to face up to the dark side of America and make sober changes - and hope the forces of intelligence and good sense will mobilize more vigorously than the forces of fear and manipulation. As Deena says, in times like these wise people know that none of us knows what's going on but all of us, in deep conversation, will learn together a way through. As McKibben's article below indicates, Katrina might be the recognized surfacing of an era of breakdowns of a magnitude we never thought possible. As my small experiences indicate, if we rely less on ego and more on community, human resilience and good sense, we can mobilize ourselves to achieve small greatnesses right where we are. If we ask large systems to do only what they are best at - complex surgery, for example, or complex policy making for global conditions - and give as much resource as possible to the people on the local front lines of care, we may be able to weather the coming "perfect" storm.
Where each of us acts in this shifting landscape of crisis is really up to each of us. I trust us to know our neighbors better, to develop skills that will be truly useful in the years ahead, to open our homes to what needs our care, to stay calm, to contribute what we know and get out of the way of those who actually know better. Where can we turn in crisis? To one another, actually. Not letting large systems off the hook on their responsibilities and failures, but not forgetting that at least here in America, it's still "the consent of the governed."
Y2K. 911. Katrina. Are we listening? Every free individual for him or herself is now a loser strategy of enormous magnitude. Simplicity, community, common sense, calm, resilience are really the core curriculum for survival. People in other lands have not had the luxury of forgetting these basics. We have. Katrina was a pop-final. We failed. But we are wired for survival through connection, council, community and what my friend Tom Atlee calls co-intelligence. It may be too late to have predictable future, but we can wise up together. For some great ideas from Alan Atkisson on a community revisioning exercise that's now relevant to rebuilding "the Big Difficult" , go to http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003425.html
and now, Bill...
Not Our America?
by Bill McKibben
September 07, 2005
http://www.tompaine.com/
Bill McKibben is the author of many books on the environment and related topics. His first, The End of Nature, was also the first book for a general audience on global warming. His most recent is Wandering Home, A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape.
If the images of skyscrapers collapsed in heaps of ash were the end of one story—the United States safe on its isolated continent from the turmoil of the world—then the picture of the sodden Superdome with its peeling roof marks the beginning of the next story, the one that will dominate our politics in the coming decades of this century: America befuddled about how to cope with a planet suddenly turned unstable and unpredictable.
Over and over last week, people said that the scenes from the convention center, the highway overpasses, and the other suddenly infamous Crescent City venues didn't "look like America," that they seemed instead to be straight from the Third World. That was almost literally accurate, for poor, black New Orleans (whose life had never previously been of any interest to the larger public) is not so different from other poor and black parts of the world: its infant mortality and life expectancy rates, its educational achievement statistics mirroring scores of African and Latin American enclaves. But it was accurate in another way, too, one full of portent for the future. A decade ago, environmental researcher Norman Myers began trying to add up the number of humans at risk of losing their homes from global warming. He looked at all the obvious places—coastal China, India, Bangladesh, the tiny island states of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Nile delta, Mozambique, on and on—and predicted that by 2050, it was entirely possible that 150 million people could be "environmental refugees," forced from their homes by rising waters. That's more than the number of political refugees sent scurrying by the bloody century we've just endured. Try to imagine, that is, the chaos that attends busing 15,000 people from one football stadium to another in the richest nation on Earth, and then multiply it by four orders of magnitude and re-situate your thoughts in the poorest nations on earth. And then try to imagine doing it over and over again—probably without the buses.
Because so far, even as blogs and websites all over the Internet fill with accusations about the scandalous lack of planning that led to the collapse of the levees in New Orleans, almost no one is addressing the much larger problems: the scandalous lack of planning that has kept us from even beginning to address climate change, and the sad fact that global warming means the future will be full of just this kind of horror. Consider the first problem for just a minute. No single hurricane is "the result" of global warming. But a month before Katrina hit, MIT hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel published a landmark paper in the British science magazine Nature showing that tropical storms were now lasting half again as long and spinning winds 50 percent more powerful than just a few decades before. The only plausible cause: the ever-warmer tropical seas on which these storms thrive. Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to full life in the abnormally hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. It then punched its way into Louisiana and Mississippi—the latter a state now governed by Haley Barbour, who in an earlier incarnation as a GOP power broker and energy lobbyist helped persuade President Bush to renege on his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
So far, the United States has done exactly nothing even to try to slow the progress of climate change: We're emitting far more carbon than we were in 1988, when scientists issued their first prescient global-warming warnings. Even if, at that moment, we'd started doing all that we could to overhaul our energy economy, we'd probably still be stuck with the one degree Fahrenheit increase in global average temperature that's already driving our current disruptions. Now scientists predict that without truly dramatic change in the very near future, we're likely to see the planet's mercury rise five degrees before this century is out. That is, five times more than we've seen so far. Which leads us to the second problem: For the ten thousand years of human civilization, we've relied on the planet's basic physical stability. Sure, there have been hurricanes and droughts and volcanoes and tsunamis, but averaged out across the Earth, it's been a remarkably stable run. If your grandparents inhabited a particular island, chances were that you could too. If you could grow corn in your field, you could pretty much count on your grandkids being able to do likewise. Those are now sucker's bets—that's what those predictions about environmental refugees really mean.
Here's another way of saying it: In the last century, we've seen change in human societies speed up to an almost unimaginable level, one that has stressed every part of our civilization. In this century, we're going to see the natural world change at the same kind of rate. That's what happens when you increase the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere. That extra energy expresses itself in every way you can imagine: more wind, more evaporation, more rain, more melt, more... more... more. And there is no reason to think we can cope. Take New Orleans as an example. It is currently pro forma for politicians to announce that it will be rebuilt, and doubtless it will be. Once. But if hurricanes like Katrina go from once-in-a-century storms to once-in-a-decade-or-two storms, how many times are you going to rebuild it? Even in America there's not that kind of money—especially if you're also having to cope with, say, the effects on agriculture of more frequent and severe heat waves, and the effects on human health of the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria, and so on ad infinitum. Not to mention the costs of converting our energy system to something less suicidal than fossil fuel, a task that becomes more expensive with every year that passes. Our rulers have insisted by both word and deed that the laws of physics and chemistry do not apply to us. That delusion will now start to vanish. Katrina marks Year One of our new calendar, the start of an age in which the physical world has flipped from sure and secure to volatile and unhinged. New Orleans doesn't look like the America we've lived in. But it very much resembles the planet we will inhabit the rest of our lives.
A Modest Proposal in response to Katrina
A modest proposal in response to Katrina
The power of an MPG meter
Sept 6, 2005
Here's something every driver can do right now to address the rising prices at the pump and looming gas shortages.
I drive a Honda Insight with an electronic miles per gallon gauge that gives me constant feedback on my driving. Every millimeter of pressure on the gas pedal shows up instantly, driving that little line of lights down towards 0. Every bit of coasting drives them up towards 100 mpg. Getting that line of lights to dance upward becomes a game. Getting the total average mpg per tankful to ratchet up becomes a challenge. In the process, I've become a champion gas-saving gal in my little 2-seater silver bullet. All from feedback. This game saves perhaps 20% in gas consumption. At this moment, that's significant. With a tank of gas for ordinary cars inching over 50 bucks a pop, just the financial savings alone might attract you to installing such a miracle meter in your car. You can - and it will pay for itself in a few tankfuls. Right online at http://tinyurl.com/dxf4q you can buy a little $30 "vacuum gauge" your mechanic can install in an hour. Before my Insight, I always installed one on my dash. You could try your local auto supply store as well. A "vacuum gauge" is not quite as jazzy as my onboard computer, but that little needle will still train your foot to be lighter than Fred Astaire's.
Behind the utility of saving money is the imperative in this moment of using less oil. Our supplies are vulnerable - politics and storms can both wipe them out. Violence associated with diminishing essential resources is an age-old problem for our species. Wars are fought over water, food and fuel. People turn mean, hoard, abandon their neighbors, disregard calls for sacrifice when they fear their personal needs won't be met. They vote down collective solutions like public transportation while they have access to oil.
Retooling the whole fleet of American cars to get better gas mileage will take many years. Building public transportation that is so good that people would rather use it than their cars will take even more years. Getting the right policies in place that reward efficiency and penalize waste will take ongoing political wrangling. But if everyone in the US put one of these little $30 gauges in their cars, we could better defend ANWR. We could reduce the temptation to bully other nations for their oil.
Imagine the whole fleet of American cars with little vacuum gauges driving delicately down the highways at the optimum gas-saving speed of under 60 miles per hour. Imagine a 10% or more reduction in demand for gas. Imagine arriving at destinations a little less frazzled. Imagine bumper stickers that say "I know my MPG - do you?" "Driving for a solution - MPG meter on board". Imagine a little thing each of us can do that would actually help this big mess.
Of course the big work of engineering a more fuel efficient fleet, changing policies, building public transportation and developing new sources of energy all needs to be done. But what's the little guy to do in the meantime? I say, spend $30 and join the exciting game of getting that gauge to go in the right direction.
By the way, I regularly get 52-55 miles per gallon. Please save me from my gloating by getting an MPG meter too.
Be well,
Vicki
PS - I know acknowledgements are the custom in books, not emails, but I want to briefly bow to the late Dana Meadows who introduced me to systems thinking. For Dana's article about her experience of that mpg gauge on her Honda Insight, go to http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn844insighted
PPS - What if, with the stoke of an executive pen, such meters were required equipment along with air bags? Hmmm. Know any executives...
The power of an MPG meter
Sept 6, 2005
Here's something every driver can do right now to address the rising prices at the pump and looming gas shortages.
I drive a Honda Insight with an electronic miles per gallon gauge that gives me constant feedback on my driving. Every millimeter of pressure on the gas pedal shows up instantly, driving that little line of lights down towards 0. Every bit of coasting drives them up towards 100 mpg. Getting that line of lights to dance upward becomes a game. Getting the total average mpg per tankful to ratchet up becomes a challenge. In the process, I've become a champion gas-saving gal in my little 2-seater silver bullet. All from feedback. This game saves perhaps 20% in gas consumption. At this moment, that's significant. With a tank of gas for ordinary cars inching over 50 bucks a pop, just the financial savings alone might attract you to installing such a miracle meter in your car. You can - and it will pay for itself in a few tankfuls. Right online at http://tinyurl.com/dxf4q you can buy a little $30 "vacuum gauge" your mechanic can install in an hour. Before my Insight, I always installed one on my dash. You could try your local auto supply store as well. A "vacuum gauge" is not quite as jazzy as my onboard computer, but that little needle will still train your foot to be lighter than Fred Astaire's.
Behind the utility of saving money is the imperative in this moment of using less oil. Our supplies are vulnerable - politics and storms can both wipe them out. Violence associated with diminishing essential resources is an age-old problem for our species. Wars are fought over water, food and fuel. People turn mean, hoard, abandon their neighbors, disregard calls for sacrifice when they fear their personal needs won't be met. They vote down collective solutions like public transportation while they have access to oil.
Retooling the whole fleet of American cars to get better gas mileage will take many years. Building public transportation that is so good that people would rather use it than their cars will take even more years. Getting the right policies in place that reward efficiency and penalize waste will take ongoing political wrangling. But if everyone in the US put one of these little $30 gauges in their cars, we could better defend ANWR. We could reduce the temptation to bully other nations for their oil.
Imagine the whole fleet of American cars with little vacuum gauges driving delicately down the highways at the optimum gas-saving speed of under 60 miles per hour. Imagine a 10% or more reduction in demand for gas. Imagine arriving at destinations a little less frazzled. Imagine bumper stickers that say "I know my MPG - do you?" "Driving for a solution - MPG meter on board". Imagine a little thing each of us can do that would actually help this big mess.
Of course the big work of engineering a more fuel efficient fleet, changing policies, building public transportation and developing new sources of energy all needs to be done. But what's the little guy to do in the meantime? I say, spend $30 and join the exciting game of getting that gauge to go in the right direction.
By the way, I regularly get 52-55 miles per gallon. Please save me from my gloating by getting an MPG meter too.
Be well,
Vicki
PS - I know acknowledgements are the custom in books, not emails, but I want to briefly bow to the late Dana Meadows who introduced me to systems thinking. For Dana's article about her experience of that mpg gauge on her Honda Insight, go to http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn844insighted
PPS - What if, with the stoke of an executive pen, such meters were required equipment along with air bags? Hmmm. Know any executives...
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Cancer Poetry
Cancer poetry
Written between March and December, 2004, when I had stage 3 colon cancer
Vicki Robin
P.O. Box 1501
Langley, WA 98260
Spring
March 25, 2004
The morning of my surgery
Swollen with fat-belly buds birthing leaves and flowers and fruits and sweet honey summer
We awaken from long winter's darkness along with the crocuses,
spirits thread-bare, worn by loneliness for our lover, the sun
out we come from hibernation, full of stories about rebirth and chattering yes.
yet from years sitting at this garden window
riding the seasons that pass like ocean swells
rocked into knowing the ageless thrumming of the summer-winter summer-winter beat
these buds speak not of ripples dancing with light moments that pass in a flash
but of the breathing of the earth
out with spring
in with winter
pausing at the equinoxes as on the crest of a wave
when up has ended and down hasn't come and you hover,
an eagle before the dive, in that wild in-between when all is visible, when all is visible
or like that pause in breathing when out is over and in isn't yet
and something the sun will never see appears...
a shimmering ocean of now.
Chemo
Vicki robin
June 1, 2004
After round one of chemo
So next time you do that chemo, dearie,
Remember this
You will get dressed up in your finest duds and smiles
All chic and attitude
While your insides are screaming
No
No
No
While your mind is shushing all your beautiful screaming cells
There there, you’ll croon
Now now, you’ll soothe
It will only hurt for…
A fucking eternity
Yes
You will go down in your slinky duds to the poison center and say,
I’ll have some more, Maude,
On the rocks
Straight up into
My tired veins
Straight into all my baby cells, those bright hopeful new lives
And I will have to tell them they are just
Collateral damage in a war they didn't start and will never understand
And they will burn
Like all the tender bodied creatures of this earth who are poisoned by our will to have our way
Like mosquitoes and slugs and rats and every leafy thing we deem a weed
They will burn
According to the instructions on the box that says, without shame, "guaranteed to kill..."
Kill that one little confused cancer cell that's wandering, separated from the home where it was born, looking for a place to unfold its destiny.
Just like me.
Yes.
You will suck it up and gussy up and take yourself down to that cancer center and say
“What poison you serving today, Maude, I’ll take the special one
The one
That burns
Hair
Mouth
Tongue
Throat
Stomach
Intestines
Asshole
That burns and blisters
That frightens every little newborn cell
Screaming
Like that
Frail child
In Vietnam
After
Napalm.
So that I will live?
Cleaning
For Taylor
Vicki Robin
June 2004
My first house-sitting place on Vashon Island; moved during worst side effects from round one
I couldn’t stop cleaning
Dust and grime and webs and
Everything that shined
Showed the next
Grime and webs and dust and so…
I couldn’t stop cleaning
Because he’d put a teddy bear on his pillow
Now my pillow for a while
As I live in his house by the water
Which is living inside his love, really
Inside a love so big even the sky can’t hold it
Because he said, “Feel free” and left for 12 days
Giving me tides to heal and waves to soothe and water to…
Clean, I couldn’t stop cleaning
Because, weeping, I find I can’t feel free to take without giving
To be in a love so big that it can hold him and me and the sky and more
So big it doesn’t need me to give, but I need to or I will die of shame
Cleaning the shame from my soul
Shame at being so small and needing so much
From him and them and the sky and the sea and…
God, I can’t stop cleaning or I will feel the crashing weight of this wearisome need
Dios mio! I need, I need, I need, I’m so sorry I will never stop needing…
To clean or I will know a debt I can never repay just
By scrubbing the grime from this world with my life just
By polishing the pain and grief and good grief…
I can’t stop cleaning or this cancer will sneer
“I am bigger than you,” as it
Squats in this house refusing to move,
Searing my pretties while spreading its fire.
I can’t.
And so I take something small, a shelf perhaps, and clean it
Soft sponge, warm water, stroking with care
The small things here in this house by sea
Spice jars and spoons and saucepans
And learn, by cleaning, that small is no sin
And weak is no shame
And at least I am here
Cupped, not crushed,
Between Death and God,
Warmed by water and his “feel free” love and
I, too, can be
Cleaned.
Empty before filling
Vicki robin
August 3, 2004
As I suffered through side effects from round two
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
we do not know desire
we do not wake at 4 in the morning
with a strange feeling of something wanting to enter our emptiness.
who is this intruder come to penetrate us,
to plant the seeds of ‘next’ in our field of open now?
this is serious, for much is lost in letting such a stranger in
do we want a poem
a lover
a walk in the moonlight
do we want more food than we need
more respect
or power
or allure
heavy burdens that will never let us empty again?
beware
we do not know want
we do not allow lack to build
until we salivate
until our stomachs growl
until an honest need can come
dusty hat in hand
with an honest request
our fullness upon fullness
says
“here lives fear,
sell me what you will
for in my house
nothing is ever enough.”
it says,
“i have heard of a universe that will never let me down,
but i have lost faith.
i do not trust.
if i do not pack my life with
people and things
i will starve
for nothing and no one is there for me.”
spin
in the vast emptiness
trailing the dust of your past like galaxies
sink
into the gossimer fullness of the space in between
feel
the touch of this velvet lover who has
waited, waited
for you to be
done
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
be peace
Lessons
Vicki Robin
August 18, 2004
As the side effects began to recede
Surely
For all the anguish
There is a gift
Surely
For all the insult
To tender cells and self
There is some wisdom
Surely
For all the knives and poisons
Some trace of words should stay
Some reminder to the well
Of what the ill can tell
Surely
There’s something more than
Brush your teeth
Take your pills
Say your prayers
Touch your toes
Surely
This valley of the shadow of death
Has more truth in it than
Eat your vegetables
Chew well
Don’t overdo
Surely
Having stood on the edge of the abyss
Having borne the howling winds
Tattering my life, silencing my plans
Some whisper will come to stay the willful one
Now returning to claim her throne.
What can I say to her
This Queen of Heaven
About the Hell she’ll soon forget?
What will draw her glance and slow her step
As she catches the scent again of
New lands … new quests?
Will she listen if I say…
“This too shall pass”
If I say…
“In the end all that counts is
receiving and giving
and kindness
and reverence
and gently touching this sacred thing called
living.”
Will she – big, bold, beautiful – turn her head if I whisper,
“Cherish,”
If I say
“Breathe”
If I invite her to pause
Lay down her glorious crown
Take off her wing-ed shoes
Feel the cool grass
And hear the one-life’s
Sweet melodieslike angels singing
Like angels singing?
Surely she will.
Surely.
She will.
Out to pasture
By Vicki Robin
September 29, 2004
As I realized I was no longer who I was… but who was i?
Was it the ankle that never set right?
Or the patch of mange that wouldn’t heal,
That wept and bled and attracted flies?
Or just that she didn’t win anymore,
Couldn’t earn her keep?
Whatever.
One day the old trainer
Clucking, talking sweet, apple in his leathery palm
Led her from the stables and
Out to pasture.
She stood there for days
Still.
Blinking.
Then she pushed her mighty, rich chocolate breast against the fence
Until it creaked and bowed.
Not quite able to remember what in her heyday she might have done.
Jump.
Run.
With tail high, nostrils flared and
Rivers of salty sweat criss-crossing the delta of her flanks.
The racehorse in her
Twitched her mane
Pawed the ground
Sniffed freedom in the air
Saw again that opening in the race between the pounding hooves and pumping rumps
Every cell alive with get in.
And win.
But something else was there
Something new
This fence.
This limit to her will
This being stopped
And all she did was lean and whinny like a nag
Whinny like a stupid nag.
Catching a scent she turned her head, like a bee turns its whole round body towards a blossom.
A farmer in a distant field was cutting oats.
Methodically driving his tractor up and down the rows
A steady whisper of thwack thwack, oat grass falling beneath the cutting blades,
A steady commotion of pistons and great tires – tall as farm-boys –
bearings grinding, treads pushing thick loam down, out, back and over.
It was the cell honey of the cut oats that called her.
Heavenly scents.
That other instinct – pleasure – floods sharp saliva under her tongue.
The smell of freshness, the remembered feel of green sugar pumping down her throat,
Lured, she turns further.
Her great brown breast now leaves the fence
Her fine leg lifts, steps back and moves her towards those fragrant fields
Towards green honey taste as lips swirl freshness into her mouth.
The pasture is lush, high with grass and shimmering with life
A big cottonwood stands in the middle, promising shade and delicious scratches for that patch that never heals
And water somewhere near.
She moves slowly, feeling the easy sway of her back, flicking flies off her haunches with her long tail.
Some other memories come, of the smell of her mother’s rump, always near, always promising safety and milk.
Of a life not of running, but standing in tall grasses, head slightly up
Sorting through a bouquet of scents
Not knowing who or what she was.
Colt-, racehorse- and nag-minds join in her flesh
As her head buries itself in fresh grass, lips sending clumps towards her teeth which grind in easy circles
Sweet green honey, sweet green honey flowing.
This new mind, this mind of work and pleasure, of youth and fullness and age
Comes alive as she ruminates in the clover.
As she leans into the cottonwood and satisfies that itch
As she drinks from the stream the cottonwood said would be there
As she drinks from the stream of all beasts who live and die
As she drinks a new knowing of what it means to have a life
As she tastes for the first time some new flavor called death.
Her ears prick. A sound.
Refreshed she runs towards it
Not to win but to feel, to feel, to feel
Who she is in her essence.
There, in the pasture, she rears
And whinnies like a colt, like a stallion, like lion might roar
And the racehorses, clad in blinders and blankets,
Pampered and prettied and feeling their oats
Pause.
Their heads turn towards the pasture
Towards this strangeness
This knowing
This promise of life.
They feel their future in that sound.
They feel the plains and running and snorting and freedom.
But their jockeys rein them in.
Cancer tribe
Vicki Robin
February 26, 2005
At a cancer care retreat
We are the tribe of the
Cut
Burned and
Poisoned
We are the ones
Who’ve been healed by our pain.
We are the ones who’ve
felt death’s breath
Behind us
Cancer has spoken:
“Your life’s not the same.”
We are the grievers
For life before cancer
When out bodies were free of the
Tracks made by knives
But pain has not bowed us
And death has not caught us
And our bodies still throb
With lust for our lives
Yes we are the tribe of the
Cut
Burned and
Poisoned
And our souls sing out yes
And our wounds make us strong.
Moving to Vashon
February 2005
Upon leaving the island I went to for healing
I was moved by my mother’s womb to be born and then
Everything moved me to tears and laughter and wonder.
Pink and orange, smooth and scratchy, sweet and tangy,
And the soft whooshing of blood in my ears.
Every noise, every sight moved me to crawl and walk and talk.
I wanted everything in my mouth.
I ate milk and bananas and toast and peas and chicken and words…
Oh when I found them I ate words and made sentences
I ate paragraphs and made pictures in my mind
I ate lectures and made meaning
I found ideas, everywhere ideas, and they moved me.
Moved me so.
Moved me so I gave my heart to these shiny ideas, ideals
And moved across country following them…
To Canada and California and Mexico and Wisconsin
To Arizona and Colorado and Idaho and Washington and Seattle…
And there I became the mover, my words moving others to be free
But me, I stopped moving.
I became the lighthouse not the light
I became the rock and ceased to roll
And so life got stuck in my gut,
Fed on blind feelings and grew in darkness until it became
A cancer which when the surgeon lifted it out my soul stumbled home
Parched, parched for water, for living water, for living by water,
And so
I moved to Vashon
Lived by the sea
Dove deep
Swam free
And healed.
And now, dear friends,
I’m movin’ on.
Written between March and December, 2004, when I had stage 3 colon cancer
Vicki Robin
P.O. Box 1501
Langley, WA 98260
Spring
March 25, 2004
The morning of my surgery
Swollen with fat-belly buds birthing leaves and flowers and fruits and sweet honey summer
We awaken from long winter's darkness along with the crocuses,
spirits thread-bare, worn by loneliness for our lover, the sun
out we come from hibernation, full of stories about rebirth and chattering yes.
yet from years sitting at this garden window
riding the seasons that pass like ocean swells
rocked into knowing the ageless thrumming of the summer-winter summer-winter beat
these buds speak not of ripples dancing with light moments that pass in a flash
but of the breathing of the earth
out with spring
in with winter
pausing at the equinoxes as on the crest of a wave
when up has ended and down hasn't come and you hover,
an eagle before the dive, in that wild in-between when all is visible, when all is visible
or like that pause in breathing when out is over and in isn't yet
and something the sun will never see appears...
a shimmering ocean of now.
Chemo
Vicki robin
June 1, 2004
After round one of chemo
So next time you do that chemo, dearie,
Remember this
You will get dressed up in your finest duds and smiles
All chic and attitude
While your insides are screaming
No
No
No
While your mind is shushing all your beautiful screaming cells
There there, you’ll croon
Now now, you’ll soothe
It will only hurt for…
A fucking eternity
Yes
You will go down in your slinky duds to the poison center and say,
I’ll have some more, Maude,
On the rocks
Straight up into
My tired veins
Straight into all my baby cells, those bright hopeful new lives
And I will have to tell them they are just
Collateral damage in a war they didn't start and will never understand
And they will burn
Like all the tender bodied creatures of this earth who are poisoned by our will to have our way
Like mosquitoes and slugs and rats and every leafy thing we deem a weed
They will burn
According to the instructions on the box that says, without shame, "guaranteed to kill..."
Kill that one little confused cancer cell that's wandering, separated from the home where it was born, looking for a place to unfold its destiny.
Just like me.
Yes.
You will suck it up and gussy up and take yourself down to that cancer center and say
“What poison you serving today, Maude, I’ll take the special one
The one
That burns
Hair
Mouth
Tongue
Throat
Stomach
Intestines
Asshole
That burns and blisters
That frightens every little newborn cell
Screaming
Like that
Frail child
In Vietnam
After
Napalm.
So that I will live?
Cleaning
For Taylor
Vicki Robin
June 2004
My first house-sitting place on Vashon Island; moved during worst side effects from round one
I couldn’t stop cleaning
Dust and grime and webs and
Everything that shined
Showed the next
Grime and webs and dust and so…
I couldn’t stop cleaning
Because he’d put a teddy bear on his pillow
Now my pillow for a while
As I live in his house by the water
Which is living inside his love, really
Inside a love so big even the sky can’t hold it
Because he said, “Feel free” and left for 12 days
Giving me tides to heal and waves to soothe and water to…
Clean, I couldn’t stop cleaning
Because, weeping, I find I can’t feel free to take without giving
To be in a love so big that it can hold him and me and the sky and more
So big it doesn’t need me to give, but I need to or I will die of shame
Cleaning the shame from my soul
Shame at being so small and needing so much
From him and them and the sky and the sea and…
God, I can’t stop cleaning or I will feel the crashing weight of this wearisome need
Dios mio! I need, I need, I need, I’m so sorry I will never stop needing…
To clean or I will know a debt I can never repay just
By scrubbing the grime from this world with my life just
By polishing the pain and grief and good grief…
I can’t stop cleaning or this cancer will sneer
“I am bigger than you,” as it
Squats in this house refusing to move,
Searing my pretties while spreading its fire.
I can’t.
And so I take something small, a shelf perhaps, and clean it
Soft sponge, warm water, stroking with care
The small things here in this house by sea
Spice jars and spoons and saucepans
And learn, by cleaning, that small is no sin
And weak is no shame
And at least I am here
Cupped, not crushed,
Between Death and God,
Warmed by water and his “feel free” love and
I, too, can be
Cleaned.
Empty before filling
Vicki robin
August 3, 2004
As I suffered through side effects from round two
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
we do not know desire
we do not wake at 4 in the morning
with a strange feeling of something wanting to enter our emptiness.
who is this intruder come to penetrate us,
to plant the seeds of ‘next’ in our field of open now?
this is serious, for much is lost in letting such a stranger in
do we want a poem
a lover
a walk in the moonlight
do we want more food than we need
more respect
or power
or allure
heavy burdens that will never let us empty again?
beware
we do not know want
we do not allow lack to build
until we salivate
until our stomachs growl
until an honest need can come
dusty hat in hand
with an honest request
our fullness upon fullness
says
“here lives fear,
sell me what you will
for in my house
nothing is ever enough.”
it says,
“i have heard of a universe that will never let me down,
but i have lost faith.
i do not trust.
if i do not pack my life with
people and things
i will starve
for nothing and no one is there for me.”
spin
in the vast emptiness
trailing the dust of your past like galaxies
sink
into the gossimer fullness of the space in between
feel
the touch of this velvet lover who has
waited, waited
for you to be
done
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
be peace
Lessons
Vicki Robin
August 18, 2004
As the side effects began to recede
Surely
For all the anguish
There is a gift
Surely
For all the insult
To tender cells and self
There is some wisdom
Surely
For all the knives and poisons
Some trace of words should stay
Some reminder to the well
Of what the ill can tell
Surely
There’s something more than
Brush your teeth
Take your pills
Say your prayers
Touch your toes
Surely
This valley of the shadow of death
Has more truth in it than
Eat your vegetables
Chew well
Don’t overdo
Surely
Having stood on the edge of the abyss
Having borne the howling winds
Tattering my life, silencing my plans
Some whisper will come to stay the willful one
Now returning to claim her throne.
What can I say to her
This Queen of Heaven
About the Hell she’ll soon forget?
What will draw her glance and slow her step
As she catches the scent again of
New lands … new quests?
Will she listen if I say…
“This too shall pass”
If I say…
“In the end all that counts is
receiving and giving
and kindness
and reverence
and gently touching this sacred thing called
living.”
Will she – big, bold, beautiful – turn her head if I whisper,
“Cherish,”
If I say
“Breathe”
If I invite her to pause
Lay down her glorious crown
Take off her wing-ed shoes
Feel the cool grass
And hear the one-life’s
Sweet melodieslike angels singing
Like angels singing?
Surely she will.
Surely.
She will.
Out to pasture
By Vicki Robin
September 29, 2004
As I realized I was no longer who I was… but who was i?
Was it the ankle that never set right?
Or the patch of mange that wouldn’t heal,
That wept and bled and attracted flies?
Or just that she didn’t win anymore,
Couldn’t earn her keep?
Whatever.
One day the old trainer
Clucking, talking sweet, apple in his leathery palm
Led her from the stables and
Out to pasture.
She stood there for days
Still.
Blinking.
Then she pushed her mighty, rich chocolate breast against the fence
Until it creaked and bowed.
Not quite able to remember what in her heyday she might have done.
Jump.
Run.
With tail high, nostrils flared and
Rivers of salty sweat criss-crossing the delta of her flanks.
The racehorse in her
Twitched her mane
Pawed the ground
Sniffed freedom in the air
Saw again that opening in the race between the pounding hooves and pumping rumps
Every cell alive with get in.
And win.
But something else was there
Something new
This fence.
This limit to her will
This being stopped
And all she did was lean and whinny like a nag
Whinny like a stupid nag.
Catching a scent she turned her head, like a bee turns its whole round body towards a blossom.
A farmer in a distant field was cutting oats.
Methodically driving his tractor up and down the rows
A steady whisper of thwack thwack, oat grass falling beneath the cutting blades,
A steady commotion of pistons and great tires – tall as farm-boys –
bearings grinding, treads pushing thick loam down, out, back and over.
It was the cell honey of the cut oats that called her.
Heavenly scents.
That other instinct – pleasure – floods sharp saliva under her tongue.
The smell of freshness, the remembered feel of green sugar pumping down her throat,
Lured, she turns further.
Her great brown breast now leaves the fence
Her fine leg lifts, steps back and moves her towards those fragrant fields
Towards green honey taste as lips swirl freshness into her mouth.
The pasture is lush, high with grass and shimmering with life
A big cottonwood stands in the middle, promising shade and delicious scratches for that patch that never heals
And water somewhere near.
She moves slowly, feeling the easy sway of her back, flicking flies off her haunches with her long tail.
Some other memories come, of the smell of her mother’s rump, always near, always promising safety and milk.
Of a life not of running, but standing in tall grasses, head slightly up
Sorting through a bouquet of scents
Not knowing who or what she was.
Colt-, racehorse- and nag-minds join in her flesh
As her head buries itself in fresh grass, lips sending clumps towards her teeth which grind in easy circles
Sweet green honey, sweet green honey flowing.
This new mind, this mind of work and pleasure, of youth and fullness and age
Comes alive as she ruminates in the clover.
As she leans into the cottonwood and satisfies that itch
As she drinks from the stream the cottonwood said would be there
As she drinks from the stream of all beasts who live and die
As she drinks a new knowing of what it means to have a life
As she tastes for the first time some new flavor called death.
Her ears prick. A sound.
Refreshed she runs towards it
Not to win but to feel, to feel, to feel
Who she is in her essence.
There, in the pasture, she rears
And whinnies like a colt, like a stallion, like lion might roar
And the racehorses, clad in blinders and blankets,
Pampered and prettied and feeling their oats
Pause.
Their heads turn towards the pasture
Towards this strangeness
This knowing
This promise of life.
They feel their future in that sound.
They feel the plains and running and snorting and freedom.
But their jockeys rein them in.
Cancer tribe
Vicki Robin
February 26, 2005
At a cancer care retreat
We are the tribe of the
Cut
Burned and
Poisoned
We are the ones
Who’ve been healed by our pain.
We are the ones who’ve
felt death’s breath
Behind us
Cancer has spoken:
“Your life’s not the same.”
We are the grievers
For life before cancer
When out bodies were free of the
Tracks made by knives
But pain has not bowed us
And death has not caught us
And our bodies still throb
With lust for our lives
Yes we are the tribe of the
Cut
Burned and
Poisoned
And our souls sing out yes
And our wounds make us strong.
Moving to Vashon
February 2005
Upon leaving the island I went to for healing
I was moved by my mother’s womb to be born and then
Everything moved me to tears and laughter and wonder.
Pink and orange, smooth and scratchy, sweet and tangy,
And the soft whooshing of blood in my ears.
Every noise, every sight moved me to crawl and walk and talk.
I wanted everything in my mouth.
I ate milk and bananas and toast and peas and chicken and words…
Oh when I found them I ate words and made sentences
I ate paragraphs and made pictures in my mind
I ate lectures and made meaning
I found ideas, everywhere ideas, and they moved me.
Moved me so.
Moved me so I gave my heart to these shiny ideas, ideals
And moved across country following them…
To Canada and California and Mexico and Wisconsin
To Arizona and Colorado and Idaho and Washington and Seattle…
And there I became the mover, my words moving others to be free
But me, I stopped moving.
I became the lighthouse not the light
I became the rock and ceased to roll
And so life got stuck in my gut,
Fed on blind feelings and grew in darkness until it became
A cancer which when the surgeon lifted it out my soul stumbled home
Parched, parched for water, for living water, for living by water,
And so
I moved to Vashon
Lived by the sea
Dove deep
Swam free
And healed.
And now, dear friends,
I’m movin’ on.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Feeling Free - Birthday Message 2005
July 4, 2005
Hello friends,
Like kids who were born around Christmas, I've always secretly considered July 4 mine - the bonfires and fireworks I took as warm-up celebrations for my birthday, July 6.
In two days, I'll turn 60. And George Bush will turn 59. And the Dalai Lama will turn 70. Ever since I found out who shares my birthday, I've wanted to make some something of it (being the meaning junkie I am). Given that we three have been born between two Western liberation days, July 4 and Bastille Day (July 14), and now that I am 6 months away from finishing my book on freedom (Feel Free; Rethinking Freedom in a World with Limits) I'm gonna make something out of that.
All three of us have pledged our lives to freedom. At a material level, W considers himself a liberator of the Iraqi people, not to speak of the Afghani and everyone globally beset by terrorists. His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL for short) has spent decades trying to non-violently liberate Tibet from Chinese rule. And I, too, have spent decades promoting independence - from money worries, but also from the whole consumer mindset. I have, to be honest, sometimes had the fervor (unto righteousness) of W. If you could hear my thoughts (many of which go right by without my notice), you'd catch sentences like, "This consumer feeding frenzy of stuff must stop! Now! I said NOW!". To my credit, I have also had the spaciousness of HHDL, often seeing with equanimity the vast, multi-faceted context out of which our delusional consumer culture arises.
All three of us are also in the soul liberation biz. W has found his salvation in Jesus, and some might read his kowtowing to the Religious Right as a sincere belief that we'd all be better off as Christians. HHDL is, first and foremost, a Buddhist monk engaged in the precise work of freeing himself from illusion at every level - lifetime after lifetime. I am more of a spiritual mongrel. I have the salvation bent of my Western Religious heritage, believing in the Kingdom of Heaven as my true home. I also seek liberation into the infinite now through attention and intention, influenced by Eastern traditions. And I've engaged in Native healing practices, from weekly Lakota sweat lodges to ceremonies with shamans from the lush jungles of South America. As I say in my book,
I’ve nosed along the fences between me and freedom my whole life, keen to openings where something fresh might blow in and swirl out musty ideas or now-dead routines. At age five I insisted on going to sleep-away camp. By eight I’d been to Cuba, by sixteen to Paris, by nineteen I was living in Spain for a year and at twenty-four I went cross-country in an old van with a guy and a dog. I started studying Utopian communities in high school, continued in college and was inventing my own within a decade. Every scrap of income was put into buying time rather than stuff – time to really taste existence up close and personal.
The range of meanings of freedom - from HHDL to W to me - says a lot. It means that the lived meaning of freedom in America in 2005 does not cover the whole territory. A NY Times July 4 editorial this morning had a welcome tinge of Patrick Henry...
The word "freedom" especially seems to have hardened around the edges in the last few years. It has lost some of its ability to suggest the open-ended potential of our lives, the possibility of coming to new terms with the expectations we have been handed by earlier generations. The overtones of discovery the word once had seem to have been put on hold. Instead, there is a new complacency, a certainty that we know just what freedom means and exactly how it should look. There is an unwelcome comfort with the inequitable distribution of freedom even in our own country. There is a poisonous tolerance for the idea that freedom encompasses only the right to say positive things about America and its mission in the world.
The liberal tradition of "freedom from" (tyranny of every stripe, from the state to overbearing neighbors) has become "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as ... it's my property, it doesn't hurt anyone (ahem... that I can see), it's not against the law or at least I don't get caught." But the freedom of "away" - getting away (with it), going away (from it) and keeping "it" away from you - has to be coupled with "freedom with" - the capacity to be with whatever arises in your life, whether inside your noggin or right in your face. If "away" is the only way to freedom, we're doomed. We do live in a round world. Materials go round and round - never away. People can run, but, given our roundness, they can't hide; away and back home are the same thing. Karma says, "What goes around, comes around." So does the Golden Rule. Anything we won't ultimately embrace, love and heal will meet us again on our next road to Samara - or in our next lifetime.
There's also the profound question, "What is freedom for?" Were we given freedom (by the Creator, by the Constitution, by the embedded principles of the Universe) so we could run, hide, invade, take, dominate, rule, escape, care for only our own? Or were we given freedom to be designers along with the Divine? If so, the holy secret is that limits along with other constraints like containers, boundaries, edges, borders, criteria, agreements, laws, principles, values, covenants and such, are the tools the Universe uses to create. Away and With are both essential. Freedom is the necessary raw expansive power of life, but limits are the shaping power of existence. All the beauty we make - in marriages, in art, in sustainable societies, in great religions - comes from knowing this secret of the "away/with" "freedom-in-limits/limits-in-freedom" paradox and embracing the exquisite tension of living where the two intersect.
For me, personal freedom comes from being present to everything that arises - within and without, touching everything with love. Janis Joplin had it half right: freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose... or gain. Relational freedom comes from knowing that everyone and everything is enacting their freedom, just like me, and is equally worthy of my respect and attention. Social freedom comes from knowing that no matter how dense and encrusted social/cultural conventions might be, they were made up by people like me, and people like me can change them. Political freedom is being engaged in the conversations that create the rules we live by and the collective plans we make. And spiritual freedom is the loving, generative space in which all this arises and passes away.
So there you have it - my birthday message along with a preview of Feel Free. Happy 4th, and for that matter 5th, 6th, 7th and all the rest.
Be well,
Vicki
Hello friends,
Like kids who were born around Christmas, I've always secretly considered July 4 mine - the bonfires and fireworks I took as warm-up celebrations for my birthday, July 6.
In two days, I'll turn 60. And George Bush will turn 59. And the Dalai Lama will turn 70. Ever since I found out who shares my birthday, I've wanted to make some something of it (being the meaning junkie I am). Given that we three have been born between two Western liberation days, July 4 and Bastille Day (July 14), and now that I am 6 months away from finishing my book on freedom (Feel Free; Rethinking Freedom in a World with Limits) I'm gonna make something out of that.
All three of us have pledged our lives to freedom. At a material level, W considers himself a liberator of the Iraqi people, not to speak of the Afghani and everyone globally beset by terrorists. His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL for short) has spent decades trying to non-violently liberate Tibet from Chinese rule. And I, too, have spent decades promoting independence - from money worries, but also from the whole consumer mindset. I have, to be honest, sometimes had the fervor (unto righteousness) of W. If you could hear my thoughts (many of which go right by without my notice), you'd catch sentences like, "This consumer feeding frenzy of stuff must stop! Now! I said NOW!". To my credit, I have also had the spaciousness of HHDL, often seeing with equanimity the vast, multi-faceted context out of which our delusional consumer culture arises.
All three of us are also in the soul liberation biz. W has found his salvation in Jesus, and some might read his kowtowing to the Religious Right as a sincere belief that we'd all be better off as Christians. HHDL is, first and foremost, a Buddhist monk engaged in the precise work of freeing himself from illusion at every level - lifetime after lifetime. I am more of a spiritual mongrel. I have the salvation bent of my Western Religious heritage, believing in the Kingdom of Heaven as my true home. I also seek liberation into the infinite now through attention and intention, influenced by Eastern traditions. And I've engaged in Native healing practices, from weekly Lakota sweat lodges to ceremonies with shamans from the lush jungles of South America. As I say in my book,
I’ve nosed along the fences between me and freedom my whole life, keen to openings where something fresh might blow in and swirl out musty ideas or now-dead routines. At age five I insisted on going to sleep-away camp. By eight I’d been to Cuba, by sixteen to Paris, by nineteen I was living in Spain for a year and at twenty-four I went cross-country in an old van with a guy and a dog. I started studying Utopian communities in high school, continued in college and was inventing my own within a decade. Every scrap of income was put into buying time rather than stuff – time to really taste existence up close and personal.
The range of meanings of freedom - from HHDL to W to me - says a lot. It means that the lived meaning of freedom in America in 2005 does not cover the whole territory. A NY Times July 4 editorial this morning had a welcome tinge of Patrick Henry...
The word "freedom" especially seems to have hardened around the edges in the last few years. It has lost some of its ability to suggest the open-ended potential of our lives, the possibility of coming to new terms with the expectations we have been handed by earlier generations. The overtones of discovery the word once had seem to have been put on hold. Instead, there is a new complacency, a certainty that we know just what freedom means and exactly how it should look. There is an unwelcome comfort with the inequitable distribution of freedom even in our own country. There is a poisonous tolerance for the idea that freedom encompasses only the right to say positive things about America and its mission in the world.
The liberal tradition of "freedom from" (tyranny of every stripe, from the state to overbearing neighbors) has become "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as ... it's my property, it doesn't hurt anyone (ahem... that I can see), it's not against the law or at least I don't get caught." But the freedom of "away" - getting away (with it), going away (from it) and keeping "it" away from you - has to be coupled with "freedom with" - the capacity to be with whatever arises in your life, whether inside your noggin or right in your face. If "away" is the only way to freedom, we're doomed. We do live in a round world. Materials go round and round - never away. People can run, but, given our roundness, they can't hide; away and back home are the same thing. Karma says, "What goes around, comes around." So does the Golden Rule. Anything we won't ultimately embrace, love and heal will meet us again on our next road to Samara - or in our next lifetime.
There's also the profound question, "What is freedom for?" Were we given freedom (by the Creator, by the Constitution, by the embedded principles of the Universe) so we could run, hide, invade, take, dominate, rule, escape, care for only our own? Or were we given freedom to be designers along with the Divine? If so, the holy secret is that limits along with other constraints like containers, boundaries, edges, borders, criteria, agreements, laws, principles, values, covenants and such, are the tools the Universe uses to create. Away and With are both essential. Freedom is the necessary raw expansive power of life, but limits are the shaping power of existence. All the beauty we make - in marriages, in art, in sustainable societies, in great religions - comes from knowing this secret of the "away/with" "freedom-in-limits/limits-in-freedom" paradox and embracing the exquisite tension of living where the two intersect.
For me, personal freedom comes from being present to everything that arises - within and without, touching everything with love. Janis Joplin had it half right: freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose... or gain. Relational freedom comes from knowing that everyone and everything is enacting their freedom, just like me, and is equally worthy of my respect and attention. Social freedom comes from knowing that no matter how dense and encrusted social/cultural conventions might be, they were made up by people like me, and people like me can change them. Political freedom is being engaged in the conversations that create the rules we live by and the collective plans we make. And spiritual freedom is the loving, generative space in which all this arises and passes away.
So there you have it - my birthday message along with a preview of Feel Free. Happy 4th, and for that matter 5th, 6th, 7th and all the rest.
Be well,
Vicki
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